Lasers are being used more frequently in medical treatments to reduce blemishes on a patient's skin. Lasers are useful in removing port wine stains, scars and wrinkles from a patient's skin to improve the patient's appearance. Lasers are also useful in removing unwanted tattoos.
Many of the laser treatments require the laser to be mobile to treat the skin blemish. To accommodate the need to for the laser to be mobile, the size of the lasers are being reduced such that the laser can be housed in a hand held housing. However, the laser must supply enough energy to complete the selected procedure. The small size of the laser coupled with the energy delivery requirements has caused the lasers to have a tendency to heat up over time with use, and require the laser to be shut down to cool to a selected temperature.
Typically, water or another cooling fluid is utilized to remove the heat that is generated as the laser is utilized. However, because of the mobility and energy requirements of the laser, a circulating coolant may not remove a sufficient amount of heat to allow the laser to run continuously for an extended period of time without heating to excessive temperatures.